Travel Creel Hospitality: The World's First Pop-Up Fishing Lodge

This article originally appeared in Fly Fisherman's 2025 Destinations special publication.

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I can no longer hope to die without regrets since my fly-fishing career is riddled with them. It’s not the kind of bemoaning that warrants wishing for a DeLorean to change history, but the sort that makes me snap my fingers, shake my head, and say, “Next time.” Mostly, they have to do with missed cultural opportunities during fly-fishing travel. Why didn’t I go to that local soccer match in Mexico? Why didn’t I stay up late for the Northern Lights in Alaska? Why didn’t I ask more questions about that parade in Belize?

And, always, I rue the food I never tasted.

Most recently, my husband and I looked out our Uber car window on the way to the airport as we left New Orleans after a redfishing trip and noticed a large banner strung over the street that said, PO’BOY FESTIVAL, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22ND. My husband’s eyes widened, and I knew what he’d say next. “That’s today, damnit! We missed it!” I snapped my fingers and shook my head, “Next time.”

For the remainder of our homeward travel, we mused whether destination fly-fishing trips could become more absorbed in local events, food, music, and art. They can, thanks to visionaries like Joshua Schwartz, who recognize that the more flavorful elements of angling are not ancillary and that fly-fishing travel holds depth of color beyond fish scales and spots.

Passionate fly fisherman and celebrated chef Schwartz polychromed his daydream for many years before making it a reality. His company, Travel Creel Hospitality, puts a delicious twist on the industry’s hosted trip standard by marrying gourmet chefs and local, expert fishing guides in world-class destinations with comfortable accommodations wrapped in cultural significance. It’s billed as the industry’s first pop-up fly-fishing lodge. “I built it out of a desire to combine my favorite trifecta: travel, fishing, and cooking,” says Schwartz.  

The business model positions the Travel Creel team as hosts who travel with clients to prime fly-fishing locations, partner with local guides, set up shop in a rental house, and provide all on-location hospitality. Breakfasts, lunches, appetizers, and dinners are prepared using the highest quality local ingredients, plus signature favorites from the chefs’ repertoire.

Schwartz has been in the hospitality industry for more than three decades. He grew up in a restaurant family where his grandfather ran a catering business on Long Island and later a French bistro. Flames, knives, and the sounds of service attracted Schwartz at a young age. He was seven years old when his beloved grandfather passed away, and he vowed to follow in his footsteps. He landed his first kitchen job at age 14. “I remember the first chef I worked for told me, ‘You’re a natural, kid. Hospitality is in your blood.’ And I felt it. I cooked throughout high school, sometimes after school, but mostly on weekends.  My older coworkers would often ask me to skip school so I could work more shifts.”

Schwartz attended the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, and worked in fine dining restaurants, including Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, Bouchon, and Per Se. He also worked for David Bouley at the original Bouley location in Tribeca, New York. Most recently, Joshua oversaw the culinary program for Del Dotto Vineyards in Napa Valley.

While Napa may indicate wine to most foodies, it signals fish to anglers, including Schwartz, and not the kind on a plate. He fished hard in Northern California and surrounding regions and soon began guiding for trout and steelhead.

“On the morning of my first guide trip on Putah Creek in California, I felt like I had no idea what I was getting into. I met my clients and was relieved they had minimal experience. I went right into training mode like I would as a chef with a green cook on the line. I did what I do as a mentor and instructor with new cooks; it was an ah-ha moment. I remember teaching them the nuts and bolts; they were so grateful. It was instant gratification to me. As a chef, you teach cooks through your actions and words. As a guide, you teach clients to fish and read water as if it were you doing the fishing,” says Schwartz. The experience primed Schwartz to dive into guide life with both feet without leaving the chef life behind.

“When I was guiding, I’d serve my clients a hot meal on a cold rainy day or give them a beautiful spread of tasty snacks on a hot summer day,” says Schwartz. Soon, other guides started to pull their boats up to his to peep the menu. He always had enough to share.

He juggled guiding and cooking for 15 years, saying, “Things that were never possible while I was in the restaurant world were unfolding for me as a guide. Significant things, like getting married and having our first child, with two more to follow. Before I knew it, I had a life!”

That life’s richness is reflected in his easy laugh, his hair’s naturally silver highlights, and many tattoos, including tarpon scales inside a Grateful Dead lightning bolt, the Baja Peninsula landscape, an angel and a devil, and the words “Buena Onda”; good vibes. His favorite is the one identically matching his wife’s: three stars to signify their three children.

In 2017, Schwartz got invited on a fly-fishing trip to Louisiana as a chef, where he learned the ins and outs of trip hosting. He honed the program, and Travel Creel Hospitality took its inaugural trip with guests to Tillamook, Oregon, in 2022. “It was another ah-ha moment because we had terrible weather, which we couldn’t control, and I was worried that the guests were miserable. But we fed them, and they all kept saying, ‘This is the best trip we ever had!’”

While I have never been a good cook, I appreciate the concept of thinking like a guide in many different situations, including preparing meals. I witnessed Schwartz stand confidently straddling both worlds during the Costa Marlin Fly marlin tagging project with Los Locos Mag Bay in Puerto San Carlos, Mexico, in 2022, when project organizers booked Travel Creel Hospitality to cater meals for the 20 professional anglers gathering scientific fisheries data. I remember my Costa ambassador teammates commenting with full mouths that the delicious cuisine risked overshadowing the conservation project’s historic mission.

I returned to Magdelena Bay in 2024, this time with a hosted group of my own, thrilled to reunite with Schwartz and his stellar team of cooks, including those from Puerto San Carlos and Josh Neiman, a chef based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but originally from my hometown in Montana. During our week of fishing and dining, The Travel Creel team conjured culinary magic featuring local ingredients such as mangrove oyster shooters in house-made clamato juice, lobster enchiladas with chorizo, shrimp kimchi with scallion oil, and wahoo in miso butter. The local cooks hired to work with Schwartz told me they appreciated Schwartz’s unique and seamless style of Asian and European fusion with regionally authentic Mexican classics. My favorite dish was green market longusto (lobster tail), featuring fresh, locally grown garlic, avocado, creamed Swiss chard with bone marrow fat, tomatoes, and asparagus. Virtually all ingredients came from within a few miles of the lodge.

“The asparagus tells the best story of what they do at Travel Creel,” said photographer Jon Coudriet as he showed me the photos he’d taken earlier that day while on a “grocery run” with Schwartz. “This is what going shopping looked like today.” I squinted at the gorgeously haunting photo, trying to understand what I saw. A wild, swirling tan-colored cloud engulfed Schwartz as he bent down in a field of tall, green asparagus, which also bowed dramatically in a gnarly windstorm. “That’s 25-knot winds and the most insane dust storm I’ve ever seen,” said Coudriet. “It was one of the coolest things ever to see Josh working with the farmer, gathering the food you’re eating right now. It hit home that he’ll do whatever it takes to support local growers, ranchers, and makers. How does it taste?”

“It’s ridiculous,” I gushed. “So good.” As Schwartz walked by, I jokingly pretended to pick sand from my teeth, but he didn’t take the bait. “You won’t find any grit in that asparagus,” he said, grinning. “I’m not going to disrespect the farmer by effing it up in the kitchen.” Puerto San Carlos is one of the world’s largest asparagus farming regions. Knowing this, Schwartz planned to work with neighboring farmers to incorporate fresh vegetables into the week’s menu.

On our trip’s second to last night, I practically sprinted from the boat ramp to the Los Locos outdoor kitchen to grill Schwartz on what we’d have for dinner. He saw me coming and said, “Goat in the hole.” “What in the what?” I asked. He pointed to a large pit dug into the ground outside the kitchen area. “Goat. In. The. Hole.” I peered inside the pit to see a large lump covered in dirt. Again, John Coudriet volunteered to tell the story of the morning’s grocery run, detailing the visit to a local goat rancher who selected, slaughtered, and butchered a goat for our evening meal. “It’s the most authentic, direct farm-to-table experience possibe,” said Schwartz with a nod.

Just a couple hours later, world-renowned angler and former downhill ski Olympian Andy Mill clinked his knife to his tequila glass to indicate he had something to say. He wiped a bit of goat

rillette and mustard sauce from the corner of his mouth and cleared his throat. “I’ve traveled all around the world to lodges,” he began deliberately. “And I have never had food this good. Sometimes, you have good fishing or a good group of guides, but the food isn’t that good. Here, it’s the whole package. Nobody has this.”

The table of guests burst into applause, then stood and continued cheering until Chef Schwartz and his beaming team of local and visiting talent emerged from the kitchen to accept the recognition. Within minutes, the cooks had returned, passing out small Mexican pottery cups of strawberry shortcake for dessert.

It struck me how well the Travel Creel crew timed out the presentation of appetizers, dynamic family-style dishes, and dessert without a hint of stress or angst. I asked Schwartz about it. “My training was working for high-stress places where chefs were mean, angry, and bitter,” he said. “That high-level environment is almost inherent to that cliché behavior. And I guess I was starting to act like that. Then, one day this new kid who was working with me said, ‘Why are you being such a dick?’ And I was like, wow, I don’t know. There’s no reason. He’s right. Being a jerk doesn’t make you important. From then on, I refused to be a part of that negativity.”

This is not to say that a pop-up fishing lodge doesn’t come with its stressors. “The biggest challenges are refrigeration,” says Schwartz. “And, proper cooking equipment. The most challenging location is the Bahamas. No pot or pan is flat, and the cutting boards are made of formica.” He cites freezers that aren’t cold enough, refrigerators that are too cold, and ovens that seem devil-possessed with unpredictable temperature flares.

“When we go to a location, we do a lot of research to identify potential pitfalls and avoid problems. But mostly, we are good at rolling with the punches, being creative, and staying positive,” says Schwartz with a smile.

The Travel Creel Hospitality calendar is packed, with guest availability on trips to Colorado, Florida, Maine, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Alaska, Honduras, Belize, Mexico, Oregon, and more.

“We’ve got Travel Creel booked for at least four weeks,” says Los Locos Mag Bay co-owner George Vandercook. “We don’t have Travel Creel here all the time, but when they are here, it’s really special. When guests are interested in booking a trip with us, they should specifically ask about our Travel Creel weeks. It’s another level.”

During our goat-in-the-hole meal, one guest asked why the grand finale meal came on the second-to-last night at Los Locos Mag Bay rather than the final night. I knew the answer and hollered over the table, “Because Chef needs to fish!” “Hell yeah!” Schwartz hollered back from the kitchen. Indeed, Schwartz and his team have worked into their program the opportunity to get on a boat and fish for fun on the last day of the trip.

That meant that our last night in Puerto San Carlos found our entire group, including Los Locos staff, guides, and the Travel Creel team, on an ambitious mission to visit every taco joint and margarita joint in town, sampling as much local fare as we could eat. To the beat of local music and surrounded by the vibrant colors in town, we celebrated the new friends we made in Mexico, the gracious community, our enhanced love for Magdalena Bay, and the flavors we’ll never forget.

On our shuttle drive to the airport the following day, I wondered if those last three tacos and tequila shots were necessary. No regrets.

travelcreel.com | Instagram: @travelcreel | Facebook: @travelcreelhospitality

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Hilary Hutcheson started guiding as a teenager in West Glacier, Montana. Today she guides on the Flathead River system, and owns and operates her fly shop, Lary’s Fly & Supply in Columbia Falls, Montana.

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